Posts Tagged ‘software’

news Software giant Microsoft is considering a radical overhaul to its giant TechEd event in Australia that would essentially spell the end of the iconic conference in its traditional mega-format, with the company instead believed to be considering a series of smaller conferences around Australia in its place.

For those IT professionals who work closely with Microsoft software, and especially the company’s widespread developer community, the trek to the company’s annual TechEd conference has become something of a global pilgrimage.

The local event is typically held at the Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre in September each year (as well as locations in other countries on a rolling basis), and features a bevy of imported technical leaders giving keynotes about Microsoft products and wider trends, as well as dedicated training and education sessions on virtually every topic possible to discuss about Microsoft products. Microsoft’s extensive partner ecosystem also attends and presents, and there are numerous parties, dinners, networking events and giveaways (including the iconic TechEd bags, seen above) each year.

Delimiter has received unverified information to the effect that squabbles between Microsoft Australia’s internal divisions about how the event would be funded have meant the event is likely to be drastically reshaped in Australia this year and may end up being organised as a series of smaller events rather than the one large mega-conference over several days. Continue…

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Enterprise IT stories

If you have even a skin deep awareness of the structure of Australia’s superannuation industry, you’ll be aware that much of the underlying infrastructure used by many of the nation’s major funds is provided by a centralised group, Superpartners. One of the group’s main projects in recent years has been to dramatically update and modernise its IT platform — its version of a core banking platform overhaul. Unfortunately, the $250 million project has not precisely been going well.

This week it emerged that Peter Grant, the two-time former Queensland Whole of Government CIO (pictured), has joined well-regarded analyst firm Intelligent Business Research Services (IBRS). We’ve long had a high regard for IBRS, and so it’s fantastic to see such an experienced executive join its ranks.

The era of troublesome desk phones tied to physical locations is gradually coming to an end in many workplaces, with mobile phones becoming increasingly popular as organisations’ main method of voice telecommunications. But some groups are more advanced than others when it comes to adoption of the trend. One of those is Westpac.

Remember how twelve months ago, the Federal Government released a new cloud computing security and privacy directive which required departments and agencies to explicitly acquire the approval of the Attorney-General and the relevant portfolio minister before government data containing private information could be stored in offshore facilities? Remember how the policy was strongly criticised by Microsoft, Government CIOs and Delimiter? Well, it looks like the policy is about to be reversed.

In news from The Department of Disturbing Facts, iTNews revealed late last week that Western Australia’s Department of Education has run out of money halfway through the deployment of new fundamental IT infrastructure to the state’s schools.

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull has published an extensive article arguing that the Federal Government needed to do a better job of connecting with Australians via digital channels and that public sector IT projects needn’t cost the huge amounts that some have in the past.

New Zealand’s national Government announced a whole of government contract this morning for what it terms ‘Office Productivity as a Service’ services. This includes email and calendaring services, as well as file-sharing, mobility, instant messaging and collaboration services. The contract complements two existing contracts — Desktop as a Service and Enterprise Content Management as a Service.

The Commonwealth Bank of Australia has promoted an internal executive who joined the bank in September after a lengthy career at petroleum giant VP and IT services group Accenture to replace its outgoing chief information officer Michael Harte, who announced in early May that he would leave the bank.

Second-tier Australian bank and financial services group Suncorp today announced that its long-serving top technology executive Jeff Smith would leave to take up a senior role with IBM in the United States, in an announcement which marks the end of an era for the nation’s banking IT sector.

Most companies that live and breathe the online revolution are not tech startups, but smart smaller firms that use online tools to run their core business better: to cut costs, reach customers and suppliers, innovate and get more control. Many others, however, are falling behind, according to a new Grattan Institute discussion paper.